Browsing Posts tagged Clinton

Lets see. We have a barnyard full of freaks and animals, many of whom self identify as jack asses. The pig pen is full of fawning media types from MSM, gorging on the slop thrown to them by farmer Obama, who moonlights as a big tent ringleader. We got legions of clowns. Wasserman Shultz is eating fire, while Axelrod is juggling. One washed up vaudeville act after another — look its Michelle. She is telling a story about Barak’s rusty old car. Why was a lawyer from an Ivy League school driving a rusty old car? They drove the rusty old car to her parents country home, talking all the while about how money does not matter. The Obama’s are only worth $7M, how would they know money does not matter? Both went to Ivy League prep schools, and from there to the Ivy League. How did they learn that money does not matter? Someone was even selling popcorn and Tofu-corn dogs during this act. Yep. This is a circus. The Democrats have come to town of Charlotte NC, and the wheels have come off the clown car.

Bill Clinton will be taking the stage tonight. He is the man on the tight rope. I am sure he wants to help Barack Obama. Why? Because Bubba is just fine with his wife losing her bid for the presidency, and doing so in a grinding, underhanded and nasty primary campaign. Then there was the issue of Bill having the race card being played on him. I guess that knocked his honorary title of the first black president off his head and into the round file. Then there is the campaign in 2016 to think about, we can’t have Bill not playing the role elder statesman, gazing with approval upon his successor. Bill is just looking for someone to carry his bags, he said so to Ted Kennedy.

We also have the bearded women from NOW. These are serious women. Not a shred of humor to be found. Not a single funny bone in the lot. These serious women want people to think seriously about serious women’s issues. With 23M people unemployed or under employed, are these serious thinking women thinking about how do women find employment, keep their jobs, put food on the table and a roof over the heads of their families? Why no. These women are seriously fixated on getting public funding for abortions. They are so serious about this that it is now a plank in the Democrat party platform for this. This is serious business in a country where there are over 5000 abortions performed everyday. All Just to stop the so called Republican War on Women? Seriously? We are supposed to take the bearded women from NOW seriously?

So. How did the wheels come off the clown car? Well, remember that party platform we mentioned earlier? It no longer had language recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the one last reference to God, had been removed. A small matter, except for the possible loss of the Jewish and non-Atheist voting blocs. But hey, this is Barack’s Democrat National Convention and he runs a tight ship right? Uh. Not really. The rules were suspended so that two planks in the party platform could be amended, returning language regarding Jerusalem and God back into the platform. The clowns were pouring out from under the hood and through the windows at this point.

This language would not have made it back in had the votes been counted. But Mayor Villaraigosa, the man with the top hat on stilts, pulled a move that would have made any Tammany Democrat proud. He declared it passed. Passed by two thirds majority? Really? It sounded like the motion did not even command a simple majority, no matter how often he called the vote. This fiasco is the mother of all unforced errors. The best part is that Democrat operatives have called this a Republican dirty trick. Really? Did Republicans write the Democrat party platform? Did Republicans make the motion on the floor to suspend the rules, introduce the new language, or vote against it? It must be George Bush’s fault.

With each new appointment Barack Obama makes, I see less and less reason to think he is going to be the radical leader his past and recent statements had led me to fear.

Like I told Kevin and the Chief the other night, and commented here some months ago, I would LOVE to be proven wrong on my suggestions Obama would try to squelch free speech, transform our capitalist economy into a subsection of the Department of the Treasury, open a system of gulags, confiscate our retirement accounts and unleash an army of brownshirts to ferret out thought crimes.

In fact, if instead of all the crazy progressive talk during the campaign Obama had simply proclaimed that his administration would be basically a third term of the Clinton presidency but with Hillary in a subservient position to himself, as looks to be taking shape, I’d have been down with that. There is some upside to letting the Democrats take the reins of power for a spell.

Instead of political invective we’d have seen a lot more shamanic wisdom on this blog – that I can assure you.

UPDATE: And if you want a little more feel-good, warm and fuzzy, things are really not so bad, savor this.

UPDATE III: Obama to delay repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. A little outside the topic of this post because this was not an issue keeping me awake at nights, frankly. But it goes to show 1) Obama appears to be tending toward the “center” if not center-right, and 2) The enhanced-gay-rights movement seems on a success trajectory roughly mirroring that of the Republican Party. Maybe we should all compare notes while regrouping?

UPDATE IV: And holy smokes, if somehow Barack Obama actually manages to make smoking ok again, it would be one of the greatest PR coups of all time. I remember a National Review article in the 1980s eulogizing the smoking culture, with the example of a European official on a TV panel discussion who, when asked a question, pulled one from his cigarette case, tapped it several times on the case, lit it up, took a long drag and exhaled slowly before answering. How much better style for gathering one’s thoughts, the NR writer observed, than the typical American politician who will blather nonsense for 30 seconds while the brain works to summon a cogent response. If President Obama can reawaken that sense of suave in the nation’s highest office, think about what it will do for public confidence.

I think that Obama is similar to Bill Clinton in one important respect. Clinton famously wanted to be President not because there was anything in particular he wanted to do, but because he craved the status of being President. In Clinton’s case, this seems to have been due to an insatiable need for approval and affection. Obama, likewise, wants to be President not in order to do anything, but because he believes that for Barack Obama to be President is an end in itself. In Obama’s case, this view is due not to a psychological craving, but rather to the historical importance of being the first African-American President.

If I’m right about that, it makes sense for Obama to be reasonably moderate. He makes history simply by being a President with dark skin; what he desperately wants to avoid is for his Presidency to be seen as a disaster or a fiasco.

Barack Obama, running on a theme of “change,” has not scored a public relations bonanza with his decision to nominate for vice president Joe Biden, a senator who has been in office since Richard Nixon was president, instead of Hillary Clinton, who has been in office since November 7, 2000.

Sixty-six percent of Clinton supporters, registered Democrats who want Clinton as the nominee, are now backing Obama. That’s down from 75 percent in the end of June. Twenty-seven percent of them now say they’ll support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.

And the more Clinton supporters think through what just happened, I am guessing, the more will scratch their heads about Obama’s choice for VP.

Under pressure in a Democratic primary, Mr Obama has sounded just like any other tax-raising, government-loving Democratic politician. Worse, he has revealed himself to be a member of that special subset of the party’s liberal elite – a well-educated man with a serious superiority complex.

His worst moment of the campaign was when he was caught telling liberal sophisticates about his anthropological observations on the campaign trail…

The myth that Obama transcends politics and ideology has been smashed, permanently. From himself, his wife, and their friends, there is now a rich audio and video trail of evidence that will be used extensively in the fall to demonstrate that John McCain is the only candidate for president Americans should feel comfortable with.

How ironic that McCain, the least attractive candidate for so many Republicans, will be able to position himself as the candidate Americans can relate to. I guess that’s the best the GOP can hope for in a Democrat year.

As people begin to learn about this just-arrived pretender, the magic dissipates. He spent six weeks in Pennsylvania. Outspent Hillary more than two to one. Ran close to 10,000 television ads — spending more than anyone in any race in the history of the state — and lost by 10 points.

And not because he insufficiently demagogued NAFTA or the other “issues.” It was because of those “distractions” — i.e., the things that most reveal character and core beliefs.

Obama had a good thing going when he was simply a guy with a good speaking style. Now, the tabula rasa has been filled in.

Hillary Clinton is beginning to seem less objectionable than Barack Obama. This is not just an argument from policy or who would be better in office, but on another meta-level who would be preferable to oppose John McCain. Who we should most like to face in November.

For a time, Hillary seemed preferable simply because of the likelihood she would lose to McCain – this on the assumption that McCain despite all his faults would offer a better chance to get better Supreme Court appointments and better 2nd Amendment fealty, so we should want the weaker Democratic candidate in the general election contest. In the back of mind in this scenario – for me – was the idea that Obama seemed to have captured America’s imagination and therefore would be more likely to win.

As the weeks and news coverage have dragged on, there has been more time to reflect on the possibility that either of the Democrats could actually end up in the Oval Office. To the extent that “hoping” for McCain over either Democrat is akin to hoping for drought over floods, the possibility of Clinton or Obama winning is becoming less unthinkable.

Obama’s negatives are absolutely terrible. This Rev. Wright has been presented as a key influence, and there is no reason to believe that is not the case, all recent sidestepping aside. Wright appears to be a “Christian” pastor in name only. He is “religious” no doubt, but in a dark mode of religion that differs little from any number of prevailing sick, modern, anti-American ideologies. Obama has spent two decades listening to Wright preach almost every week. Then, we have his wife, Michelle Obama, saying she was never in her life proud of this country prior to roughly this past February. There is his “solution” to the Iran problem as dialogue with the mullahs. Finally is Obama committing the gaffe – which in this case reflects perfectly Michael Kinsley’s excellent maxim that “gaffe” = “truth” – by stating that people who adhere to religion and hold other conservative beliefs are just plain backwards.

Barack Obama gives every indication of being the next Jimmy Carter. Honestly, there seems to be no end to what wacky, incompetent stuff Obama might say or do.

This leaves Hillary Clinton, who personifies “the devil we know.” After seeing her speak recently, holding forth on the centrality of religion in American life and the sacrosanct nature of the 2nd Amendment, one must be reminded of the famous triangulations of her husband beginning 15 years ago.

Don’t get me wrong: I would expect awful Supreme Court nominations from Hillary Clinton, and likely a new “Clinton gun ban,” but I honestly think she is more likely to be someone we can work with for sensible policies. Bill Clinton, for all his downsides, was a hell of a better president than Carter. (Mr. Clinton needed a Republican Congress to be so, and that is fine. That could be the 2010 project).

Obama seems like an utter and complete liar. He has said the right things about bridging ideological divides, but his voting record is anything but, and his pedigree as noted above is radical anti-Americanism, through and through.

Consequently, much as it pains me to say it, Hillary Clinton appears to be the better choice for Democrat candidate for president. Better to have the devil we know than the next Jimmy Carter.

Barack is defensive (understandably so when everyone is attacking him relentlessy for for he entire time) and Hillary is on topic and relentless in her attacks. But for the mendacity of the questioners and their questions.

Honestly, these people need to be removed from the Public’s airwaves and given ordinary jobs doing something useful like following the horses at Mackinac Island in the summer with a wheelbarrow and a shovel. It is painfully obvious that they have no skill at being “Journalists.”

So George Stephanopoulos is out there chatting with Newsmax columnists and Sean Hannity…

The Same George Stephanopoulos who is the Political Director of ABC, whose Good Morning America was the first National Network Program to break the Reverend Wright Story. And the Very Same ABC that’s owned by the Disney Corporation, whose other network, ESPN is in the news for Canceling not one but TWO Obama Exclusive Interviews at the executive level (edited with clarification by jethropaleorobber)

No, they did not – they just asked normal questions designed to force the candidates to address the sticky questions, and take a stand on current issues, often in light of the candidates’ previous statements. That’s what they do. I think the Democrat supporters, especially Obama supporters, are showing pretty thin skin at this point in the campaign, because it has not been a good few weeks for their candidates.

UPDATE V: Man, I have now seen a number of video clips of the debate on CNN and must say: This was another huge night for John McCain. He has not even had to comment or respond – he could be on a three-week golf vacation in Scotland for all anyone knows – and his stock has gone up big time. Neither of the Democrats seem remotely, plausibly “presidential.” I have problems with John McCain, but there is no denying this campaign is his to lose. The landscape could not have been made more favorable to him and all he needs to do is present a stable persona to contrast with the skittishness of these two Democrats, because neither of them gives the impression of being on solid ground.

The spring before his wife began her White House campaign, former President Bill Clinton earned $700,000 for his foundation by selling stock that he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government, public records show…

And I am going to go out on a limb here and propose that reading the above comes absolutely as no shock to anyone, anywhere at all.

That’s almost a truism. With Clintons come scandals, just like with puppies come dirty carpets.

But there is a deeper level of significance to this tin pot scandal (measured by Clintonian standards): It reveals why so many of us lazy conservatives would feel so content with another Clinton candidacy: Because it keeps us in our comfort zone.

From what I have seen the past couple years, there is a raging, idiotic trend among Republicans to keep fighting the rhetorical battles of 1998. Family values, national security, fiscal prudence, blah blah blah. Hey, it worked 10 years ago, why give up on a good thing? I think this is dopey, because so much has happened in the intervening decade and, at some level, reality has to matter. As dumb as we conservatives are, we should be able to reformulate our arguments.

At the same time, it is sort of sweet to be able to just pull out the old playbook and get to work.

This is the opportunity Hillary affords us. Is it good for America? Heck no, the Clintons have never been good for America but then few of our elected officials are. What Hillary is, is eminently, doubly condemnable. If she is not saying something dumb for us to leap upon, we can be pretty certain that her husband will still offer rays of hope for a new, budding scandal. Two for the price of one, as they say.

It would be so very easy to not have to think outside the box. Let’s just run against the Clintons one more time, shall we?